Mixed bag of
reactions over Isa Samad’s open defiance, arrest of IGP’s son for corruption
and the blog “Drug Bust Jails 22 Innocents” which raise disturbing
questions about national integrity and the war against corruption________________________________
Media Statementby Lim Kit Siang________________________________

(Penang,
Saturday):
The arrest of the son of the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Bakri
Omar, for corruption has been hailed as a vindication of the growing
independence and effectiveness of the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA).

It may be or it may be not. Even
if we concede the former, such a “baby step” is lost and overwhelmed by the
failure of ACA to act in the past four months and in particular in the
past week, against the Federal Territories Minister Tan Sri Mohd Isa Samad
who was found guilty of corruption and money politics in UMNO party
elections and whose six-year suspension as UMNO member by the UMNO
Disciplinary Board on 24th June was confirmed by the UMNO
Supreme Council on 7th October though the suspension term was
halved to three years.

The defiance of Isa, who found
the UMNO Supreme Council decision “amusing”, refusing to resign as Federal
Territories Minister in the past nine days as he has “unfinished business”
in his Ministry, is an open challenge of the moral and ethical plank of the
Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his pledge to lead a
clean, trustworthy and incorruptible administration.

So long as a Cabinet Minister can
be immune from ACA prosecution despite being found too corrupt to remain as
a party member let alone as a party official, there will be no way for the
ACA to establish its credibility, authority and legitimacy.

The IGP’s son is as entitled as
any Malaysian to the benefit of the principle that a person is innocent
until proven guilty. It is however a legitimate public-interest concern for
Malaysians to ask whether Bakri can succeed in inculcating the new values
and culture of “zero tolerance for corruption” in the police force when he
appears to be such a failure in the smaller unit of his own family.

This episode casts a dark shadow
over the future of Royal Police Commission Report and its 125
recommendations to create an efficient, professional, incorruptible
world-class police service.

The appearance of the blog,
“Drug Bust Jails 22 Innocents”
http://corrupted-malaysia.blogspot.com, narrating the traumatic
experience of a young professional and 21 other innocent victims in a police
drug bust in a famous nightclub at Sri Hartamas last month - the
corruption, brutalities, abuses of power and the incarceration at Pudu Jail
which they experienced - raises the question whether the Royal Police
Commission’s 18-month work was a total waste of time, as nothing in the
Police force had changed.

Clear signals
are urgently needed from Abdullah on his pledge to lead a clean,
accountable, trustworthy and incorruptible government before Malaysians lose
all faith in his ability to deliver altogether.